The Nobel Prize

• Every year since 1901 the Nobel Prize has been awarded for achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and for peace.

• The Nobel Prize is an international award administered by the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden.

• In 1968, Sveriges Riksbank established The Prize Sveriges Riksbank in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, founder of the Nobel Prize.

• Each prize consists of a medal, personal diploma, and a cash award.

• The festival day of the Nobel Foundation is on the 10th of December, the anniversary of Nobel’s death. The Prize Award Ceremony for the Nobel Prizes takes place at the Stockholm Concert Hall.

• Each year the respective Nobel Committees send individual invitations to thousands of members of academies, university professors, scientists from numerous countries, previous Nobel Laureates, members of parliamentary assemblies and others, asking them to submit candidates for the Nobel Prizes for the coming year.

• Six laureates have received more than one prize; of the six, the International Committee of the Red Cross has received the Nobel Peace Prize three times, more than any other.

• Among the 826 Nobel laureates, 43 have been women.

• The first woman to win a Nobel Prize was Marie Curie, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903. She was also the first person to win two Nobel Prizes, the second being the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, awarded in 1911.

• In years in which the Nobel Prize is not awarded due to world events or a lack of nominations, the prize money is returned to the funds. The Nobel Prize was not awarded between 1940 and 1942 because of World War II.

Exercise 11. Group the following winners of the Nobel Prize according to the spheres they belong to:

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (1901) Mikhail Gorbachev (1990)

Mother Teresa (1979) Max Planck (1918)

Ernest Hemingway (1954) Niels Bohr (1922)

Albert Einstein (1921) Nelson Mandela (1993)

Ivan Bunin (1933) Ivan Pavlov (1904)

Bernard Shaw (1925) Marie Curie (1911)

Woodrow Wilson (1919) Rudyard Kipling (1907)

Barack Obama (2009) Theodore Roosevelt (1906)

Physics	Chemistry	Physiology/ Medicine	Literature	The Nobel Peace Prize	Economy

Exercise 12. Decide if the statements are true or false

1. The Nobel Prize has been awarded for achievements in physics, biology, medicine, literature and for peace.

2. The Nobel Foundation is in Sweden.

3. The festival day of the Nobel Foundation is on the 11th of December.

4. The prize in economic was established in 1998.

5. The winner of the prize gets only a medal and a diploma.

6. The International Committee of the Red Cross has received the Nobel Peace Prize three times.

7. If nobody is awarded the prize money isn’t returned back to the fund.

Exercise 13. Discuss the following situations:

1. Tell us about some famous personality who has won the Nobel Prize. When? What for? Explain why you have chosen this person.

2. What other spheres would you add to the 6 spheres of the Nobel Prize? Explain why.

3. Tell whom would you nominate to the Nobel Prize? Why? What for?

4. Tell some interesting facts about Alfred Nobel. Why did he found the Nobel Prize? Who was he? Where did he take all the money from?

5. Tell about the Nobel Prize and the Nobel Foundation.

Lesson 41. Famous Scientists, Scholars ( Видатні вчені, науковці)

“Science is discovery. Science is fun.

Science is understanding what makes

a clock tick and what makes a cat purr,

what makes the Sun rise and what makes

the Moon look so large on the horizon…”

Rita Colwell